1492278 - wpt contributors getting unwanted email if commits are backed out

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Conduit :: Phabricator, enhancement)

Description

[James Graham [:jgraham]]

We have two way sync for the https://github.com/web-platform-tests/wpt repository. A series of commits coresponding upstream PRs are landed periodically. Occasionally these commits are backed out. If it happens that someone who made a commit to the upstream repository (e.g. directly via GitHub or via another browser vendor with a similar 2-way sync setup e.g. Chromium) has a phabricator account they now get an email about the commit generated for the backout. This happened with [1].

That contributor is not interested in the backout because it's not actionable for them. However getting an email implies that some action is required. Therefore it would be strongly prefereable not to send any email in this case. I can see two possible solutions:

* Disable email specifically for the subset of commits associated with wpt sync
* Generally make email about new commits opt-in rather than opt-out

Honestly I prefer the latter solution because from my perspective as a gecko developer if a backout occurs and it's actionable to me I"m already getting a bugmail related to the backout commit and a needinfo from the sheriff, so a third email from Phabricator is basically useless.

[1] https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/rMOZILLACENTRALb7da8965b780

Comment 1

[Mark Côté [:mcote]]

Could you attach an example of this email?  I don't think I've ever gotten emails from Diffusion so I'm not entirely sure what's going on here.

Comment 2

[Sam Sneddon [:gsnedders]]

Attachment: Diffusion.eml

see attached Diffusion.eml

Comment 3

[Mark Côté [:mcote]]

Attachment: Diffusion.html

Here's the de-base64ed version for easier analysis.

Comment 4

[Mark Côté [:mcote]]

Okay I think these are audit-related emails (viz header "X-Phabricator-Mail-Tags: <audit-other>" and others).  We don't really use that functionality, since we do pre-commit reviews, so it may indeed make sense to turn this off.  I'll discuss it with the team tomorrow.

Comment 5

[Mark Côté [:mcote]]

Btw you can turn these off yourself via Settings -> Email Preferences and setting the Audits options to "Ignore" (I think this one is specifically "Other commit activity not listed above occurs.").

Comment 6

[Mark Côté [:mcote]]

There does not seem to be a way to default this to off unfortunately.  Best we can do is educate any WPT contributors who may also have accounts on our Phabricator instance that they can disable these mails .